IT Procurement Solutions: How They Work, Features, Tools, and More

Getting the right IT assets into the hands of your employees is a fundamental yet vital part of business operations. Unfortunately, this can come with a lot of complexities, especially when it involves sourcing technology from multiple suppliers. 

But with the right IT procurement services or software, you can make the procurement process simple and stress-free. 

What Are IT Procurement Solutions?

Simply put, a procurement solution takes the hassle out of sourcing, deploying, and managing IT assets, allowing you to distribute equipment to employees all over the world without any heavy lifting. 

And because many platforms emphasize automation, you can dramatically streamline procurement workflows, which reduces your workload and allows you to focus on other areas of business operations. 

Besides that, many procurement software offer built-in data analysis, which can help clients better understand their entire IT ecosystem to improve collaboration, streamline management, and reduce supplier costs. 

IT Procurement Features

1. Purchasing

Whether you need laptops, monitors, mobile devices, or any other equipment, you must first find the right business supplier and make the purchase. There are a few main steps involved in supplier purchasing.

You must:

• Research multiple suppliers to see who offers equipment with the best pricing
• Select the right IT assets
• Create approval workflows
• Get purchase approvals from relevant stakeholders
• Negotiate contracts
• Make a purchase request
• Initiate purchase order creation
• Pay the supplier invoice

It’s also helpful to leverage analytics to perform detailed analysis to identify trends and patterns. From there, you can implement the data for better future decision-making. 

When done manually, the supply chain purchasing process can be meticulous, with the potential for hiccups along the way. But with IT procurement software or services, it can be significantly streamlined for maximum functionality and efficiency. 

With allwhere, for example, our procurement leaders tap into our existing network of verified suppliers, handle contract management, take care of supplier management, and create customized IT kits that are perfectly tailored to your company’s needs. 

And because we have a large network of reputable suppliers, our customers are never limited to one supplier’s inventory. This means that even if one vendor is out of stock, we can simply purchase from a different vendor, so you get what you need for rapid fulfillment.

Note that allwhere also offers buy and hold options, where you can purchase IT assets from our webstore and ship them directly to allwhere warehouses. Your equipment will then be securely stored until it’s ready for deployment. 

This is helpful because you can avoid supply chain issues and shipping delays, ensure employees have access to critical equipment when they need it, and rapidly deploy devices with just one click from your allwhere dashboard. 

2. End-to-End Logistics

As you might imagine, there can be a lot of twists from the moment you make a purchase order to when the equipment reaches an employee.

A huge part of strategic sourcing is logistics, which heavily involves communication with a shipping partner and an employee to ensure that equipment reaches its intended destination on time. 

One reason why many business owners prefer a procurement solution is that it coordinates the entire procurement process from start to finish and leverages automation whenever it can. 

With procurement software, every single procurement activity, from order fulfillment to vendor management to shipping to equipment distribution, is taken care of for you for an extremely hands-off experience.

And if you have a globalized team with employees spread around the world, a procurement solution can handle cross-border procurement, customs, compliance, and other intricacies for easier procurement management and added business efficiency.

That way, you don’t have to worry about the logistical complexities that naturally occur in the procurement process, which creates a level of operational efficiency that’s difficult to achieve if your business handles procurement in-house. 

Also, the data generated by the analytics within a tool is extremely helpful for improving future decision-making and overall logistics management. 

3. Deployment

This is the point in supply chain management where an employee receives the technology sent by procurement teams.

Effective deployment is all about ensuring equipment is delivered on time. And in many cases, it involves pre-configuring devices so that an employee can get them up and running quickly, while paying attention to data security and compliance. 

If an employee is onboarding, this can shave hours off the process so they can get to work quicker. Or if it’s part of an upgrade, they don’t have to be encumbered by figuring out how to set up new features.

The great thing about IT procurement software is that it can automate much of deployment so that a device is properly configured before it reaches an employee, while ensuring compliance and data security. 

And if you use IT asset management services like allwhere, you can leverage Buy & Hold, which allows you to efficiently deploy devices from our global network of warehouses. 

This can be incredibly helpful for preventing supply chain and shipping delays and keeping your global team stocked with the equipment they need. 

4. Tracking

Having a bird’s-eye view of your IT inventory processes every step of the way is essential, as it offers full visibility and accountability for simpler procurement management. 

Some specific information you want to know is: 

• What equipment is currently in your inventory
• What’s been deployed
• What’s in transit
• Which employees have what
• What each device’s current location is
• What your procurement and shipping costs are

The great thing about IT procurement software is that it checks all of these boxes, and with a few clicks, organizations can track every single asset from a single tool. That way, you’re always in control of your IT assets, and you never lose track of anything. 

Instead, procurement software lets you rest easy knowing where your IT assets are, so your business can focus on getting work done rather than hunting down equipment. 

And if there’s an issue like a device being delayed during transit, procurement software will keep everyone involved notified with automated alerts until it’s received. 

Use allwhere for IT Procurement

There are many IT procurement software and services on the market. But if you’re looking for the complete package for modern business sourcing, allwhere is at the top of the totem pole. 

With allwhere, we help organizations streamline every aspect of procurement processes, including:

• Purchasing 
• End-to-end logistics
• Deployment
• Tracking
• Supplier performance management
• Collaboration
• Data security and compliance
• Compiling analytics information for easy data analysis

All of our robust features are available on a single, easy-to-use procurement software tool. With it, organizations can manage the technology they procure, purchase information, supplier relationship data, contracts, and more. 

And by leveraging the data within allwhere, you can continually optimize your workflows, simplify processes with automation, make more data driven decisions, improve collaboration, and optimize overall sourcing to reduce costs. 

As we mentioned earlier, allwhere isn’t tied to a single supplier. This is what allows us to have the flexibility needed to acquire the exact equipment you need, even if one supplier doesn’t have it in stock. 

Also, unlike many other IT procurement software and services, allwhere offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model with no platform fees and no minimums. 

So whether you’re a small to medium-sized business or a large enterprise, you can right-size your plan to meet your business needs without overspending. Learn more here.